The workshop came about after a discussion with a colleague about helping scholarship students with their film analysis skills. We thought it might be useful to show teachers of senior English how Media Studies goes about the analysis of film and the more technical aspects of close reading and interpretation.
Workshop - Section One:
Text Selection:
I spoke to a few of my colleagues in the English department about the criteria they use to select their texts for film study. The majority indicated that these were their reasons:
a. Familiarity b. Personal preference c. Available resources
In my humble opinion, the key skill in teaching film is the selecting of the text to study in the first place. Texts which offer 'Avenues to Excellence', or as I like to call them ‘Door Openers’, are in my opinion, the most suitable and most beneficial.
The criteria on which I choose my texts for study are:
a. Technical Merit b. Task and student suitability c. Opportunity for expanded learning
What I mean by this is a text that that can take you beyond the story. They lead you to historical, political and sociological reflection. This content can lift an essay or review from the good to the excellent and create authority and confidence in the written work that is often lacking.
How do I know what film to choose?
This question is difficult to answer. In a profession such as ours it is important and essential to develop your skills and knowledge in your area of the curriculum. Unfortunately, many teachers do not take this area of their curriculum as seriously as the more established forms such as literature and Shakespeare. As such, they do not give equal time in either class hours or unit preparation to the visual texts they teach. Certain genres lend themselves to analysis in a more comprehensive way than others. Horror, Science Fiction, Film Noir, Thrillers and Documentaries are all genres that utilize the technical aspects of filmmaking in combination with the thematic and narrative conventions that English requires in order to provide good options for study and assessment. Other genres (Romance, Biographical, Drama) are just as strong in terms of narrative/thematic content but perhaps lack in the technical area, yet often these seem to be the texts of choice. This is simply shooting yourself in the foot.
Workshop – Section Two: Genre as teaching tool
No Film Is An Island: Films are not stand-alone pieces of work; they are shaped by historical context and contain deliberate and not so deliberate allusions to other ideas, work and texts. Genre is also expectation. Expectation of the director, the producers, and of course a target audience. In order to fully appreciate, understand and maximise your selected text you can utilise the wider genre in your unit of work.
As a Media Studies teacher, genre is a huge component of my programme at all 3 levels. It is also a way of introducing the text as a piece of work with value, scope and meaning outside of merely being a story unto itself. Utilising the wider genre as a tool to teach your film is something taken for granted in media courses and that has proven to be enjoyable for both teacher and learner and incredibly beneficial to the end product. A short period of class time on the common shared features and developments of the genre of your chosen text would lift the assessment and hopefully the quality of work produced. Wittgenstein wrote that genre was best described as family resemblance. Meaning that 2 brothers are not the same person but their DNA and physical (and often intellectual) features are similar enough for us to connect them. This is an interesting way to introduce the idea of genre to your classroom in an accessible way, but also helps kids to understand what we mean when we ask them to make connections to various other texts in their critical/analytical writing. Suggest texts that support your core text, show scenes or stills when discussing certain visual techniques and open those pathways.
The Film as an 'Open Door': Looking at the pathways your text offers to the extended abstract, knowledge and hopefully resulting in excellence.
Historical Context/Influence:
Historical context is a key part of genre externals at level 2 and 3 of Media Studies. English tends to focus more on the directorial/author's intention for the text where as Media assessment leans towards the audience/societal response to and influence on the text. The ability to second-guess the producers of texts has become less relevant. Rather than discussing why the filmmaker has made a particular choice or used a particular technique, the real gold is in the 'what does it do?' Also the development of a genre is an important consideration and we look at the actual impact of texts and techniques on the wider community and obviously how community/society shapes the texts themselves. For level 2 Genre (EXT) there are 4 discussion topics in the exam:
Commercial Considerations. Audience Expectation. Development of Genre. Common Shared Features
For my Level 2 Science Fiction course we currently look at 2 of these in depth. Women and the changing role they have in the genre and the thematic ‘umbrella’ of nature in conflict with technology and the common shared features of these often, but not exclusively dystopian narratives. The texts we use include: Frankenstein (1931), Planet of the Apes (1968), Terminator 2 (1991) and Moon (2009). For Women in Sci-Fi texts such as: Barbarella (1968), Alien/Aliens (1979/86) and The Fifth Element (1997). These texts are ‘open doors’. They lead to discussion and investigation of the events such as the civil rights movement, Vietnam, McCarthyism, cloning, The Cold War, Women's Liberation Movement, contraception, and abortion amongst other things. In many cases the kids themselves pick the ball up and run off at high speed toward the Internet and libraries to follow these newly discovered seams of gold that they become attracted to.
Workshop – Section Three: Close Reading
Moving beyond the Close-Up: When asked to identify a film technique used in a scene, the vast majority of students will choose this technique as their example because they have been taught to do so. As a marker of internal assessments that require close reading this is not only frustrating but also very jading. There is a great deal to be said for ignoring the close up as an example whenever possible. Often it shows the student is looking past the obvious and more importantly they are thinking for themselves.
The concentration on the narrative conventions/techniques like costuming, setting and lighting and the more obvious camera techniques like shot sizes is not a bad thing. The less apparent and more ‘technical’ such as camera movement, editing and angles can also provide the answers that can show real insight into theme, character and atmosphere and at the same time have a real impact on the audience.
One other problem is the need to concentrate on directorial intention as opposed to audience response. From what I have read the focus is definitely more on the former in English and we in MS tend to concentrate more on the actual impact on viewers/society in general. But it may work to a students advantage and be inherently easier to look at that relationship between director and audience from the viewpoint of the audience.
Camera movement & Angles – Tracking, Zooming, Steadicam, Handheld, Tilts, Dutch Tilts, Low and High Angles.
Montage/Editing – Cut, Juxtaposition & Contrast, Cutting On The Move, Transitions, Time Manipulation Effects, Sound Editing, Foley, Rhythm & Pace,
Scaffolding Analysis: Often the students will either be resistant to or unskilled in looking past the ‘obviousness’ of a film. They don’t find it easy to change from the reception of a narrative to the analysis of a construction, believing things just ‘are what they are’. We are told from a very young age that ‘seeing is believing’ but this is not factual. Even the images we have in our heads that are transported from our eyes to our brain are representations of the reality not reality. We cannot know reality visually but we can recognize images and meaning and we do so using carefully constructed formulas. Structure, form and apparatus are all invisible to the viewer until they understand the conventions and processes taking place. Image, structure and editing are subservient to the story and character lives but meaning and emotion cannot exist in film without the forms to deliver them, the techniques. Furthermore, on very few occasions will a technique be really effective at creating meaning without the input or presence of another ‘collaborating’ technique. To try and encourage your students to understand this is difficult, so a text that has ‘technical merit’ is crucial to being able to recognize the techniques in the first place.
When doing a close reading of a scene I use the following scaffold in order to clearly structure my written analysis:
1. Technique: Correctly name and identify a technique.
2. Use: The SPECIFIC and DETAILED example.
3. Meaning: What is the meaning created by the technique.
4. Effect: What is the resulting impact on the audience.
T: This is plainly and simply about practice. If you test your class at the beginning of your unit and find they are either unable to identify the techniques that you present to them (as I have found) then practice, practice and practice again. There is no other way.
U: nothing annoys me more as a marker of close reading assessments than vague and lazy answers that are lacking in specificity. Details are key and show concentration and commitment to the assessment. The must be exact and to be so you must make sure you give them the opportunity to be so.
M: The student must discuss and give reasons why this technique is the one the director has chosen and what is the desired result of it’s use? Once this is clear then how does this technique interact/collaborate with other techniques in the scene and the wider film. The focus here is on the creator of the text.
E: Audience is the first area of concern here. The student must now look at the impact of the technique and it’s collaborators on the audience. Supporting evidence becomes key at this point. That evidence should come from the wider text and genre. To be able to connect your example to those in other texts in the same ‘family’ is great, as it will often be used for similar purposes and has similar results. Seemingly unrelated genres can still provide good examples to back up analysis. Sci-fi and Film Noir or Horror are the best examples. Your students cannot fulfill this without having been taught around the text. The contextual and supporting materials of frontloading and pre-teaching a genre cannot be underestimated.
The Extended Abstract: It is at this point that the true test of your text comes to be. If your text has ‘open doors’ the students should find themselves able to connect their conclusions to wider ideas, historical events, sociological issues. The ‘extended abstract’ becomes accessible and allows the student to display the knowledge, understanding and responses that prove their learning in the process.
The workshop came about after a discussion with a colleague about helping scholarship students with their film analysis skills. We thought it might be useful to show teachers of senior English how Media Studies goes about the analysis of film and the more technical aspects of close reading and interpretation.
Workshop - Section One:
Text Selection:
I spoke to a few of my colleagues in the English department about the criteria they use to select their texts for film study. The majority indicated that these were their reasons:
a. Familiarity
b. Personal preference
c. Available resources
In my humble opinion, the key skill in teaching film is the selecting of the text to study in the first place. Texts which offer 'Avenues to Excellence', or as I like to call them ‘Door Openers’, are in my opinion, the most suitable and most beneficial.
The criteria on which I choose my texts for study are:
a. Technical Merit
b. Task and student suitability
c. Opportunity for expanded learning
What I mean by this is a text that that can take you beyond the story. They lead you to historical, political and sociological reflection. This content can lift an essay or review from the good to the excellent and create authority and confidence in the written work that is often lacking.
How do I know what film to choose?
This question is difficult to answer. In a profession such as ours it is important and essential to develop your skills and knowledge in your area of the curriculum. Unfortunately, many teachers do not take this area of their curriculum as seriously as the more established forms such as literature and Shakespeare. As such, they do not give equal time in either class hours or unit preparation to the visual texts they teach. Certain genres lend themselves to analysis in a more comprehensive way than others. Horror, Science Fiction, Film Noir, Thrillers and Documentaries are all genres that utilize the technical aspects of filmmaking in combination with the thematic and narrative conventions that English requires in order to provide good options for study and assessment. Other genres (Romance, Biographical, Drama) are just as strong in terms of narrative/thematic content but perhaps lack in the technical area, yet often these seem to be the texts of choice. This is simply shooting yourself in the foot.
Workshop – Section Two: Genre as teaching tool
No Film Is An Island:
Films are not stand-alone pieces of work; they are shaped by historical context and contain deliberate and not so deliberate allusions to other ideas, work and texts. Genre is also expectation. Expectation of the director, the producers, and of course a target audience. In order to fully appreciate, understand and maximise your selected text you can utilise the wider genre in your unit of work.
As a Media Studies teacher, genre is a huge component of my programme at all 3 levels. It is also a way of introducing the text as a piece of work with value, scope and meaning outside of merely being a story unto itself. Utilising the wider genre as a tool to teach your film is something taken for granted in media courses and that has proven to be enjoyable for both teacher and learner and incredibly beneficial to the end product. A short period of class time on the common shared features and developments of the genre of your chosen text would lift the assessment and hopefully the quality of work produced. Wittgenstein wrote that genre was best described as family resemblance. Meaning that 2 brothers are not the same person but their DNA and physical (and often intellectual) features are similar enough for us to connect them. This is an interesting way to introduce the idea of genre to your classroom in an accessible way, but also helps kids to understand what we mean when we ask them to make connections to various other texts in their critical/analytical writing. Suggest texts that support your core text, show scenes or stills when discussing certain visual techniques and open those pathways.
The Film as an 'Open Door':
Looking at the pathways your text offers to the extended abstract, knowledge and hopefully resulting in excellence.
Historical Context/Influence:
Historical context is a key part of genre externals at level 2 and 3 of Media Studies. English tends to focus more on the directorial/author's intention for the text where as Media assessment leans towards the audience/societal response to and influence on the text. The ability to second-guess the producers of texts has become less relevant. Rather than discussing why the filmmaker has made a particular choice or used a particular technique, the real gold is in the 'what does it do?' Also the development of a genre is an important consideration and we look at the actual impact of texts and techniques on the wider community and obviously how community/society shapes the texts themselves. For level 2 Genre (EXT) there are 4 discussion topics in the exam:
Commercial Considerations.
Audience Expectation.
Development of Genre.
Common Shared Features
For my Level 2 Science Fiction course we currently look at 2 of these in depth. Women and the changing role they have in the genre and the thematic ‘umbrella’ of nature in conflict with technology and the common shared features of these often, but not exclusively dystopian narratives. The texts we use include: Frankenstein (1931), Planet of the Apes (1968), Terminator 2 (1991) and Moon (2009). For Women in Sci-Fi texts such as: Barbarella (1968), Alien/Aliens (1979/86) and The Fifth Element (1997). These texts are ‘open doors’. They lead to discussion and investigation of the events such as the civil rights movement, Vietnam, McCarthyism, cloning, The Cold War, Women's Liberation Movement, contraception, and abortion amongst other things. In many cases the kids themselves pick the ball up and run off at high speed toward the Internet and libraries to follow these newly discovered seams of gold that they become attracted to.
Workshop – Section Three: Close Reading
Moving beyond the Close-Up:
When asked to identify a film technique used in a scene, the vast majority of students will choose this technique as their example because they have been taught to do so. As a marker of internal assessments that require close reading this is not only frustrating but also very jading. There is a great deal to be said for ignoring the close up as an example whenever possible. Often it shows the student is looking past the obvious and more importantly they are thinking for themselves.
The concentration on the narrative conventions/techniques like costuming, setting and lighting and the more obvious camera techniques like shot sizes is not a bad thing. The less apparent and more ‘technical’ such as camera movement, editing and angles can also provide the answers that can show real insight into theme, character and atmosphere and at the same time have a real impact on the audience.
One other problem is the need to concentrate on directorial intention as opposed to audience response. From what I have read the focus is definitely more on the former in English and we in MS tend to concentrate more on the actual impact on viewers/society in general. But it may work to a students advantage and be inherently easier to look at that relationship between director and audience from the viewpoint of the audience.
Scaffolding Analysis:
Often the students will either be resistant to or unskilled in looking past the ‘obviousness’ of a film. They don’t find it easy to change from the reception of a narrative to the analysis of a construction, believing things just ‘are what they are’. We are told from a very young age that ‘seeing is believing’ but this is not factual. Even the images we have in our heads that are transported from our eyes to our brain are representations of the reality not reality. We cannot know reality visually but we can recognize images and meaning and we do so using carefully constructed formulas. Structure, form and apparatus are all invisible to the viewer until they understand the conventions and processes taking place. Image, structure and editing are subservient to the story and character lives but meaning and emotion cannot exist in film without the forms to deliver them, the techniques. Furthermore, on very few occasions will a technique be really effective at creating meaning without the input or presence of another ‘collaborating’ technique.
To try and encourage your students to understand this is difficult, so a text that has ‘technical merit’ is crucial to being able to recognize the techniques in the first place.
When doing a close reading of a scene I use the following scaffold in order to clearly structure my written analysis:
1. Technique: Correctly name and identify a technique.
2. Use: The SPECIFIC and DETAILED example.
3. Meaning: What is the meaning created by the technique.
4. Effect: What is the resulting impact on the audience.
T: This is plainly and simply about practice. If you test your class at the beginning of your unit and find they are either unable to identify the techniques that you present to them (as I have found) then practice, practice and practice again. There is no other way.
U: nothing annoys me more as a marker of close reading assessments than vague and lazy answers that are lacking in specificity. Details are key and show concentration and commitment to the assessment. The must be exact and to be so you must make sure you give them the opportunity to be so.
M: The student must discuss and give reasons why this technique is the one the director has chosen and what is the desired result of it’s use? Once this is clear then how does this technique interact/collaborate with other techniques in the scene and the wider film. The focus here is on the creator of the text.
E: Audience is the first area of concern here. The student must now look at the impact of the technique and it’s collaborators on the audience. Supporting evidence becomes key at this point. That evidence should come from the wider text and genre. To be able to connect your example to those in other texts in the same ‘family’ is great, as it will often be used for similar purposes and has similar results. Seemingly unrelated genres can still provide good examples to back up analysis. Sci-fi and Film Noir or Horror are the best examples. Your students cannot fulfill this without having been taught around the text. The contextual and supporting materials of frontloading and pre-teaching a genre cannot be underestimated.
The Extended Abstract:
It is at this point that the true test of your text comes to be. If your text has ‘open doors’ the students should find themselves able to connect their conclusions to wider ideas, historical events, sociological issues. The ‘extended abstract’ becomes accessible and allows the student to display the knowledge, understanding and responses that prove their learning in the process.